US 11,874,258 B2
System and method of characterizing crude oil by gel permeation chromatography (GPC)
Omer Refa Koseoglu, Dhahran (SA); Saroj Kumar Panda, Dhahran (SA); and Hendrik Muller, Dhahran (SA)
Assigned to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY, Dhahran (SA)
Filed by Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Dhahran (SA)
Filed on Oct. 11, 2018, as Appl. No. 16/157,222.
Prior Publication US 2020/0116683 A1, Apr. 16, 2020
Int. Cl. G01N 30/86 (2006.01); G01N 33/28 (2006.01); G01N 30/02 (2006.01)
CPC G01N 30/8675 (2013.01) [G01N 30/8631 (2013.01); G01N 33/2823 (2013.01); G01N 33/2829 (2013.01); G01N 2030/027 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system for evaluating a crude oil sample and calculating an indicative property of a naphtha or gas oil fraction of the crude oil sample without first distilling said naphtha or gas oil fraction, the system comprising:
a high performance liquid chromatograph that analyzes the crude oil sample for gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis;
a non-volatile memory device that stores calculation modules and data, the data including density of the crude oil sample and gel permeation chromatography data indicative of GPC peak intensity, full permeation time, retention time, and full exclusion time at predetermined increments between a predetermined range for the oil sample, as derived by an analysis of the crude oil sample by the high performance liquid chromatograph;
a processor coupled to the non-volatile memory;
a first calculation module that, when executed by the processor, calculates GPC retention time index as a function of the full permeation time, retention time, and full exclusion time, and enters the GPC retention time index into the non-volatile memory;
a second calculation module that, when executed by the processor, converts the GPC retention time index to molecular weight, and enters the molecular weight into the non-volatile memory;
a third calculation module that, when executed by the processor, calculates and enters into the non-volatile memory a GPC index as the sum of the products of GPC peak intensity and molecular weight over a range of molecular weights;
a fourth calculation module that calculates the indicative property for the naphtha or gas oil fraction of the crude oil from a two-variable polynomial equation with predetermined constant coefficients developed using linear regression techniques, and that stores the indicative property into the non-volatile memory device;
wherein the two variables of the two-variable polynomial equation are the GPC peak intensity and the density of the crude oil sample.